A present demand for a future need
We are told that deep in the bowels of old European centers of civilization, there are networks of cavernous tunnels that have survived the passage of time. Some were apparently used as waterways in impressive depths and widths unmatched in modern era. Others served as military installations that are acknowledged by present military strategists as of extreme utility and doubtless efficiency and still others functioned as impenetrable underground safe havens from all sorts of calamities and disasters. Of course, there were dungeons too that were designed and used for less humane activities.
Here is a recorded fact. At the height of the Second World War, German V-1's and V-2's rained on England's cities against which the British had little defense. Residential buildings were pulverized and some sturdily built edifices were reduced to rubbles. The Britons used their underground tunnels as shelters and that in fact saved thousands of their citizens' lives.
Even the Americans built their bunkers in chosen cities just half a century ago. At the apex of the Cold War, the minds of the leaders of USA were gripped with the fear that Russian inter-continental rockets with atomic warheads might descend upon them. Their counter was a feverish construction of underground shelters. They even had regular drills on how to evacuate to their bomb shelters incorporated into their social lives. Don't they have their command center supposedly constructed somewhere in the granite silos of the Rockies?
Whether based on historical fact or on imaginative science fiction, the idea of constructing super-strong structures pre-occupied the minds of great leaders of the past as it should command the attention of present ones. It is not paranoia to conceptualize the need of some sort of sanctuaries especially in the rapidly changing climate. After all, Yolanda and just few weeks ago, Patricia, were not just names of beautiful women. They were weather disturbances of unprecedented proportions.
Let us put our feet on the ground as we imagine a future need. Do we have a building where we can store the very important government files, the irreplaceable icons of our written history and the most precious representative pieces of our culture and keep them safe even when we are struck by an earthquake of the 7.2 magnitude that hit Bohol two years ago? When a Yolanda type of a typhoon is forecast to hit our city, God forbid, do we have the structure we can safe keep those whose houses are not expected to survive the fury of the wind?
Well, it will be the height of our leaders' sense of responsibility if they include in their programs of government preparations not only anticipatory of unpredictable natural disasters but for foreseeable events of horrible proportions. Are we, for example, aware that leading scientists throughout the world have sighted an asteroid, calculated to have the size equal to two-to-three football fields that is hurtling thru space in the direction not distant from our planet? That they think that either that spatial rock might pass by our planet very proximately or actually collide with us sometime in the year 2029? And that in their scientific models horrendous tsunamis and fires would ravage the world for about half a year?
If we have the opportunity to interact with the candidates we have for the 2016 elections, let us make them think along the thought processes of ancient leaders in working out for the future of our people and apply such ideas for the present and future needs. The contingencies should incorporate systems of evacuation of people to safe grounds, effective distribution of relief goods, constructions of sanctuaries on pre-selected sites to actual housing of our citizens in these selected havens. We should not be contented with the usual promises couched in motherhood statements. What we demand must be specific and workable programs to make our place safe for many, if not everyone, in the very near future.
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